Rudolf Steiner Archive & e.Lib Document

Raphael's Mission in the Light of the Science of the Spirit

Schmidt Number: S-2694

On-line since: 15th June, 2018

Raphael's Mission in the Light of the Science of the Spirit

Rudolf Steiner Archive Document

Lectures Section

All the world will want to know about the life-work of such a human
being, for Raphael has become one of the pillars upon which the higher
culture of the human spirit is founded. We would fain draw nearer to him,
since we have need of him for our well-being.

By Rudolf Steiner

Translated by Peter Stebbing
Bn 62.9; GA 62; CW 62

From this translation: “Human beings will always want to know about
Raphael; about the beautiful young painter who surpassed all others; who was
fated to die early. Whose death all Rome mourned. When the works of Raphael
are finally lost, his name will remain engraved in human memory.”

From the translator, Peter Stebbing: “No adequate translation has
existed until now of Rudolf Steiner's lecture on Raphael ... perhaps my
translation will be of interest to the readers of the Rudolf Steiner
Archive & e.Lib.”

This single lecture is the 9th of 14 lectures in the lecture
series entitled,
Results of Spiritual Investigation,
published in German as,
Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung.

This lecture is presented here with the kind permission of
Peter Stebbing and the
Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung,
Dornach, Switzerland. From Bn 62.9; GA 62; CW 62.

This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:Various e.Text Transcribers

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Raphael
belongs to those figures in mankind's spiritual history
that appear all at once, like a star, who are simply there, so
that one has the feeling, they arise quite suddenly from
indeterminate substrata of humanity's spiritual development —
disappearing again after deeply impressing their being upon
this spiritual history. Closer observation reveals that such
individualities, of whom one had at first assumed, they light
up like a star and disappear again, actually incorporate
themselves into cultural life as a whole, as into a great
organism. One has this feeling quite especially with
Raphael.

Herman Grimm [1828-1901],
the eminent art historian, of
whom I was able to speak here last time, attempted to trace
Raphael's influence, his renown, through the times that follow
Raphael's own age, up to our own day. He was able to show that
Raphael's creations worked on after his death like a living,
unified stream of spiritual development that continues beyond
his death, reaching to the present. If Herman Grimm was able to
show this, one would like to say on the other hand: The
preceding age leaves us with the impression that it already
points in a certain respect to Raphael's later entry into world
evolution, just as a limb is an integral part of an
organism.

In
calling to mind a saying of Goethe's, one would like to transpose it,
as it were, from the realm of space to the realm of time.
Goethe
once made the following significant utterance:
“How can the human being relate himself to the infinite,
other than by gathering together all his spiritual forces,
drawn from many directions, asking himself: Is it permissible
to think of yourself as the centre of this eternally existing
universal order, when it leads at the same time to a persistent
circling around an absolute mid-point?”
[From:
Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Vol. 1,
Chapter 10.]

In
applying this saying to temporal evolution, one would like to
add: in a certain respect the gods of Homer, described by him
in such a grandiose manner almost a thousand years before the
founding of Christianity, would lose something for us, in
looking back into pre-historic times, if we were not able to
see them as they re-emerged in the soul of Raphael. Only there
do they attain a certain completion in the powerful visual
expression of Raphael's creations. Thus, what Homer brought
forth long before the advent of Christianity joins itself for
us to an organic whole through what arose from Raphael's soul
in the sixteenth century.

And, by the same token, if we direct our gaze to the biblical
figures of which the New Testament tells us and then
contemplate the works of Raphael, we have the sense that
something would at once be lacking for us if the creative power
in Raphael's Madonnas and similar pictures, arising from
biblical tradition and legends, had not been added to the
descriptions of the Bible. One would like to say, Raphael not
only lives on in the centuries that follow him; what preceded
him joins with his own creative activity to form an organic
whole — even if this becomes evident only from a later
historical viewpoint.

Thus, an expression that
Lessing [Gotthold Ephraim, 1729-1781]
made use of in an important connection, in referring
to “the education of the human race,” appears in a
special light. We see how a uniform spiritual element flows
through humanity's development and how this shines forth quite
especially in such outstanding figures as Raphael. What we have
often been able to emphasize from a spiritual scientific
standpoint in regard to the development of humanity —
concerning the repeated earth-lives of the human being — takes
on further significance in contemplating what has been said. We
become aware of the significance of the fact that the human
spirit appears again and again in repeated earth-lives
throughout the various epochs of humanity, bearing from one age
to another what is to be implanted in mankind's spiritual
development. Spiritual science seeks meaning and significance
in human evolution. It does not want merely to present what
happens sequentially in an ongoing straight line of
development, but rather to assign an overall meaning to single
periods. In appearing again and again in earth-lives that
follow each other, the human soul comes onto this earth so as
to be able to experience something new each time. Thus, we can
really speak of an education the human soul undergoes in
passing through various earth-lives; an education by means of
all that is cultivated and achieved by the common spirit of
humanity.

What is put forward here from a spiritual scientific standpoint
concerning Raphael's relation to the general development of
humanity over the last centuries is not meant as a
philosophical, historical construct. It arises rather as a
natural outcome of considering Raphael's creative activity from
all manner of viewpoints. These reflections are not the result
of an urge to elaborate on humanity's spiritual life
philosophically. What is said has arisen for me after
contemplating Raphael's creations from many points of view —
crystallizing quite naturally into what I wish to present.
However, it will not be possible to enter into particular works
of Raphael as such, since this would require showing such works
at the same time. But the total works of Raphael also coalesce
in feeling to an overall impression. Having studied Raphael,
one bears something of a total impression in one's soul. And
then one may ask: How does it stand with this overall
impression as regards the development of humanity?

Our
attention is necessarily drawn to an important age with which
Raphael is intimately connected, the age that coincides with
the development of the ancient Greek culture. What the Greeks
attained and what they experienced out of their inherent nature
presents itself as a kind of middle epoch in the development of
humanity. What precedes Greek culture, which is concurrent in a
certain respect with the founding of Christianity, presents a
quite different aspect from what follows it. If we consider the
human being in the time prior to Greek culture, we find that
the soul and spirit were much more intimately connected with
the external bodily nature than was the case in subsequent
periods. What we may call the “internalizing” of
the human soul, the withdrawal of the human soul in turning to
the spirit, in wanting to contemplate what underlies the
spiritual in the world — this did not exist in the same measure
as it does today for the times preceding the Greek period. For
human beings of that earlier time it was rather that in making
use of their bodily organs, the spiritual secrets of existence
illuminated their souls simultaneously. A detached view of the
sense world, such as we find in today's conventional science,
did not exist in those older times. The human being beheld
objects with his senses, sensing at the same time, in having
the impression before him, what lives and weaves in things of a
soul-spiritual nature. The spiritual resulted for human beings
from the things themselves, from making use of their sense
organs. A withdrawal from sense impressions, in giving oneself
over to inner experience, so as to arrive at the spiritual in
the world, was not necessary in older times.

If
we go very far back in the development of humanity, we find
that what may be called, in the best sense of the word,
“clairvoyant contemplation of things,” was a
general property of the humanity of primeval times. This
clairvoyant contemplation was not attained in separate states
but was simply there and as natural as sense perception. Then
came Greek civilization with its own characteristic world of
which it can be said that, though the internalizing of
spiritual life begins here, what the spirit experiences
inwardly is still seen in connection with what goes on
externally in the sense world. In Greece the sensory and the
psycho-spiritual hold each other in balance. The spiritual was
no longer given in such an immediate fashion together with
sense perception as in the time preceding Greece. The spiritual
welled up as it were in the Greek soul as something inwardly
separate, but as something felt in directing the senses out
into the world. The human being became aware of the spiritual,
not in the things of the external world, but in
connection with them. In the time preceding Greece, the human
soul was poured, as it were, into the bodily nature. It had
freed itself from the bodily nature to some extent in Greece,
but the soul-spiritual held the bodily nature in balance
throughout the time of ancient Greece. For that reason, the
creations of the Greeks appear as fully permeated with
spirituality as what presented itself to their senses. — Then
came the times that followed Greece, times in which the human
spirit internalizes — in which it was no longer granted it to
receive the spiritual element that lives and weaves in things
along with sense impressions. These are times in which the
human soul had to withdraw into itself and experience its own
forces through conscious effort, in advancing to the spiritual.
The human soul had to experience spiritual contemplation of
things and sensory observation as, so to speak, two worlds.

What has just been said becomes fully evident in considering a
spirit such as
St. Augustine [A.D. 354-430],
who is barely separated farther in time from the advent of Christianity
than we are from the Reformation. Humanity's progress becomes
apparent in comparing what St. Augustine experienced and set
forth in his writings, with what has come down to us from the
Greek world. What St. Augustine expounds in his
Confessions, what he shows us of the soul battles in
turning inward, what he reveals of an inner being altogether
withdrawn from the external world — how impossible does this
seem with regard to the spirits of ancient Greece! There we see
everywhere how what lives in the soul unites with what happens
in the external world.

The
historical development of humanity shows itself divided as
though by a mighty incision. On the one hand we have the
culture of ancient Greece in which humanity holds the balance
with respect to the soul-spiritual and the external physical.
On the other hand, we have the founding of Christianity, that
proceeds from everything the human being experiences inwardly,
by means of inner battles and conscious effort — turning not to
the outer world in sensing the riddles of existence, but to
what the spirit can ascertain when giving itself over to purely
soul-spiritual forces. Altogether different are those
beautiful, those majestic and so perfect Greek gods, Zeus and
Apollo, as though separated by a deep chasm from the Crucified
One, from inner depth and power, undistinguished by external
beauty. This is already the outer symbol for the profound
turning point represented by Christianity and the culture of
ancient Greece in the development of humanity. We see this
turning point in the spirits that follow the Greek period,
taking effect as an ever greater internalizing of the soul.

The
inner deepening that took place in this way is characteristic
of the further development of humanity. — If one would
comprehend the development of humanity, one has to become clear
in one's mind that we are living in an age which implies a
progressive internalization in the sense of what has been said
— whether we view it in terms of the immediate past, or in
looking to the future. Thus, we can foresee a time in which a
still greater chasm will loom between everything that goes on
in the external world, what happens in the more or less
mechanical life of the outer world, and what the human soul
aspires to in wanting to ascend to an understanding of
spiritual heights — in attempting to take the inner steps that
lead to the spiritual. We are advancing more and more toward an
age of further internalization. A significant turning point in
regard to this progress of humanity toward inwardness since
ancient Greek times is what has come down to us in Raphael's
creations.

As
a quite unusual spirit, Raphael places himself as though at a
watershed of mankind's development. What precedes him is in a
quite special sense the beginning of the turn toward
inwardness. And what follows him presents a new chapter in this
internalization of the human soul. Some of what I have to say
in today's presentation may sound like a kind of symbolic
reflection. But it should not be taken as a mere symbolic mode
of expression. On account of Raphael's towering greatness, the
attempt here is to grasp what can otherwise only be clothed in
trivial concepts, as far as possible in broader concepts and
ideas.

Attempting a glance into Raphael's inner being, it strikes us
above all how, in the year 1483, this soul appears as a
veritable “spring-time birth,” undergoing an inner
development and evolving brilliant creations. And when Raphael
subsequently dies at thirty-seven, he is still young. So as to
immerse ourselves in Raphael, in following the various stages
of his development, let us turn our attention for the moment
from historical events to Raphael's inner nature.

Herman Grimm has pointed out certain regular intervals in
Raphael's development. Indeed, spiritual science has no need to
be ashamed, in the face of disbelieving humanity, in pointing
to certain cyclical laws, laws of a regular spiritual path,
also of individuals, since a thinker of the calibre of Herman
Grimm — without spiritual science — was led to recognize a
regular cyclical development in Raphael. Herman Grimm refers to
a work of Raphael that especially delights us in Milan, the
“Marriage of the Virgin,”
[1504], as a completely
new phenomenon in the whole of art history, that cannot be set
alongside any previous work. Thus, out of indeterminate depths,
Raphael brought forth something that distinguishes itself as
being entirely new in spiritual evolution.

Noting in this way what, from birth on, was a predisposition in
Raphael, taking account of his progression, we can sense with
Herman Grimm how he enters upon certain four-year periods. It
is remarkable how Raphael advances in cycles of four years. And
if we contemplate such a four-year period, we see Raphael at a
higher level each time. About four years after the
“Marriage of the Virgin,”
he painted
“The Entombment,”
four years later the frescoes of the
“Camera della Segnatura,”
and so on, in stages of four years, until the work that stood
unfinished next to his deathbed, the
“Transfiguration of Christ”
[1516-20].

Since everything in regard to Raphael's nature proceeds so
harmoniously, we feel the need to consider it purely for
itself. One then gains the impression that in the age of
Raphael a quality of inwardness had to arise, quite especially
in regard to the art of painting — an inwardness that had
to realize itself in figures such as Raphael alone was able to
bring about, born of profound soul experiences, though manifesting
in sensory images. And does this not then in fact become part
of history itself?

Having thus considered Raphael's inner nature, let us turn to
the times and the surroundings into which he was placed. There
we find that, while still a child growing up in Urbino, Raphael
found himself in an environment that could have a stimulating
and awakening effect on his decisive talents. A palace building
had arisen in Urbino that aroused excitement throughout Italy.
It could be said to have contributed to Raphael's initial
harmonious disposition. However, we then see him transplanted
to Perugia, to Florence and then to Rome. Basically, Raphael's
life unfolded within a narrow circle. In viewing his life, how
close in proximity do these places lie for us today. Raphael's
entire world was circumscribed within a relatively narrow
region, so far as the sense world was concerned. Only in spirit
did he raise himself to other spheres.

In
Perugia, where Raphael underwent his youthful development,
bloody battles were the order of the day. The city was
populated by a passionately aroused citizenry; noble families
that lived in strife and discord, waged war on each other. One
faction drove the other from the city. After a brief expulsion,
the others attempted to seize the city again. And not a few
times, the streets of Perugia were covered in blood and strewn
with corpses. A history writer
[Astorre Baglione. See:
Francesco Matarazzo:
Cronache della Città di Perugia.]
describes a peculiar
scene, as do other reports of that time that are indeed quite
odd. In lively fashion, we see a member of the city's nobility
emerge, who, to avenge his relatives, storms into the city as a
warrior. The writer describes how he rides on horseback through
the streets, the embodiment of the spirit of war, massacring
all in his way. But the description is such that the writer
clearly had the impression: it is a matter of a justified
vengeance being taken by the nobleman. The image in the
historian's mind is of a warrior subjugating the enemy beneath
his feet. In one of Raphael's pictures, the
“St. George,”
we can sense this image the chronicler
indicates. We have the immediate impression, it could not be
otherwise than that Raphael let this scene work on him. What
must appear outwardly so frightful for us, resurrects inwardly
in Raphael's soul and becomes the starting point for one of the
greatest and most significant pictures in the development of
humanity.

Thus, Raphael witnessed a quarrelling, battling population
around him. Confusion and chaos, war and strife reigned all
around him in the city in which he pursued his apprenticeship
with his first teacher,
Pietro Perugino.
We have the impression that two distinct worlds coexisted in
the city: The one in which cruel and horrible things occurred,
and another that lived inwardly in Raphael, having little to do
with what went on around him.

Then in the year 1504 we again see Raphael transplanted, now to
Florence. How did matters stand with Florence when Raphael
entered the city? First of all, by their conduct the inhabitants
made the impression of being tired people, having undergone
inner and outer states of agitation, of satiation and fatigue.
— What all had not befallen Florence! Internal battles as
in Perugia, bloody vendettas among patrician families, as well
as battles with outside forces. But, roiling every soul in the
city, there had also been the incisive experience of
Savonarola
[Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), prior of the
Monastery of San Marco, burned at the stake at the instigation of
Pope Alexander VI.]
who had died a martyr's death not long before Raphael arrived
in the city. We have the strange figure of Savonarola of the fiery
tongue, lashing out against the deplorable state of affairs, the
acts of cruelty on the part of the Church, against secularization,
against the paganism of the Church. The stormy words of
Savonarola reverberate in us if we give ourselves over to them;
words with which he captivated all of Florence, so that people
not only hung on every word, but worshipped him as though a
higher spirit stood before them in that ascetic body.

As
a kind of religious reformer Savonarola had transformed the
city of Florence. His preachings pervaded not only religious
ideas, but the entire city-state. Florence stood wholly under
the influence of Savonarola, as though a divine republic of
some sort were to be founded. And we then see Savonarola fall
prey to the powers he had spoken out against, morally and
religiously. The moving scene arises of Savonarola being led
with his companions to the martyr's pyre. From the gallows he
turned to look down upon the people gathered there, who had for
so long been enthralled by him, having once hung on his every
word. This was in May of the year 1498. Having now forsaken
him, they viewed him as a heretic. However, in a few among
them, including artists, the words of Savonarola still echoed
on. After Savonarola had suffered a martyr's death, a painter
of that time assumed the monk's habit, so as to continue
working in his spirit, in his order.
[Fra Bartolomeo, who became a Dominican in 1500.]

It
is not difficult to imagine the tired atmosphere that lay over
Florence. We see Raphael transposed into this atmosphere in the
year 1504 — bringing, with his creative activity, the spirit's
“breath of spring” that introduced into the city a
spiritual fire, so to speak, though of a quite different kind
from what Savonarola had been capable of. Taking account of the
contrast between the mood of this city and Raphael's soul in
its isolation (joining other artists and painters working in
solitary workshops or elsewhere in Florence) a picture emerges
that once again shows how Raphael stood inwardly apart from the
external circumstances in which he found himself. We see the
Roman popes, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X and the whole papal
system that Savonarola had railed against and the reformers had
opposed. But it transpires that in this papal system we have at
the same time Raphael's patrons. We see Raphael in the service
of this papacy. Inwardly, his soul has in truth little in
common with what meets us, for example, in his patron Julius
II. The latter admitted to appearing to people as someone who
“had the devil within him,” and generally had the
impulse to bare his teeth in confronting his enemies.

Nominally great figures, these popes were certainly not what
Savonarola or his like-minded comrades would have called
Christians. The papacy had passed over into heathenism, not in
the old, but in a new sense. There was not much trace of
Christian piety in these circles, though certainly of the
desire for splendour and lust for power. Raphael becomes the
servant of this heathenized Christendom. But such that
something is created out of his soul by which the Christian
ideas appear in many respects in a new form. We see the most
heartfelt, the most delightful content of the world of
Christian legends arise in the Madonna pictures and other works
of Raphael. What a stark contrast there is between the
inwardness of soul in Raphael's works and all that went on
around him in Rome, when he became the outer servant of the
popes. How was all this possible? Already, with his
apprenticeship in Perugia, and then his time in Florence, we
see how disparate were the actual circumstances and Raphael's
inner nature. This was quite especially the case in Rome, where
he created pictures of worldwide renown. Yet Raphael and his
surroundings have to be taken into account if we are to acquire
a proper idea of what lived within him.

Let
us allow the pictures of Raphael to work upon us. For the
moment, this cannot be done with individual pictures, though
one of his best-known paintings may be singled out, so as to
come to an understanding of the characteristic soul quality in
Raphael. It is the
“Sistine Madonna”
in nearby Dresden, which almost everyone knows from the numerous
reproductions found throughout the world. This shows itself to
be one of the noblest, most magnificent works of art in the
history of mankind. We see the Mother and Child float toward us
over the clouds that cover the globe — out of an indeterminate
realm of the spiritual-supersensible — enveloped and surrounded
by clouds that seem naturally to take on human form. One of
them as though condenses to become the Child of the Madonna.
She calls forth a quite particular feeling in us. In permeating
us inwardly, this enables us to forget all legendary ideas from
which the image of the Madonna derives, as well as all
Christian traditions that tell of the Madonna.

I
should like to characterize, not in a dull manner, but as
large-heartedly as possible what we are able to feel in regard
to the Madonna. In considering human evolution in the sense of
spiritual science we transcend the materialistic view.
According to the natural scientific view, the lower creatures
evolved first, ascending as far as the human being. However,
from the standpoint of spiritual science we have to see the
human being as having an existence over and above the lower
kingdoms of nature. With the human being we have, in spiritual
scientific terms, what is much older than all the creatures
that stand in relative proximity to him in the kingdoms of
nature.

For
spiritual science the human being existed before the animal,
the plant or even the mineral kingdom came into being. We look
back into far distant perspectives of time in which what is now
our innermost nature was already there, only later to unite
itself with the kingdoms that stand below the human being. Thus,
we see the essential being of Man descend, that in truth can
only be comprehended in raising ourselves to the supersensible,
to what is pre-earthly. By means of spiritual science we come
to recognize that no adequate conception of the human being is
to be gained from forces connected only with the earth. We must
raise ourselves to super-terrestrial regions to see the
approach of the human being. To speak metaphorically, we must
feel how something floats toward the earthly — in turning our
gaze, for instance, to the sunrise in a region such as that in
which Raphael lived, to the gold-gleaming sunrise. There, even
in natural existence, we can come to feel how something must be
added to what is earthly, of forces that we can connect with
the sun. Then there arises for us, out of the golden lustre,
the symbol of what floats down in order to take on the vesture
of the earthly.

In
Perugia quite especially, one can have the sense that the eye
beholds the same sunrise seen by Raphael and that the natural
phenomenon of the rising sun grants us a feeling of what is
celestial in the human being. Out of the clouds shone through
by the sun-gold there can arise for us — or it can at least
appear so — the image of the Madonna and Child as a symbol of
the eternally celestial in the human being, that wafts down to
the earth out of the extraterrestrial. And below, separated by
clouds, we have everything that only proceeds from the earthly.
Our feeling-perception can rise to the most exalted spiritual
heights, if — not theoretically and not abstractly but with our
whole soul — we abandon ourselves to what affects us in
Raphael's Madonna. It is a quite natural feeling one can have
in regard to the world-famous picture in Dresden. And I should
like to provide an example showing how it has had such an effect
on some people, in quoting words written by Goethe's friend,
Karl August,
Duke of Weimar, concerning the
“Sistine Madonna,”
following a visit to Dresden:

With the Raphael adorning the collection there, it was for me
as when, having climbed the heights of the Gotthard all day and
traversed the Urseler Loch, one all of a sudden looks down on
the blossoming, green valley below. As often as I saw it and
looked away again, it always appeared only like an apparition.
To me, even the most beautiful
Corregios
were only human pictures; in memory, their beautiful forms palpable
to the senses. — Raphael, however, remained always like a mere
breath, like one of those appearances the gods send us in
female form, in our happiness or sorrow; like pictures that
present themselves to us again in sleep, upon awakening or in
dreaming, and having once seen, appear to us day and night ever
afterwards, moving us in our inmost soul.

And
it is remarkable, what is to be found in following up the
literature of those able to express something of a profound
nature in viewing the
“Sistine Madonna,”
as also other Raphael pictures. Again and again we find comparisons
with light, with the sun, with what is luminous and what is
spring-like in nature.

This affords us a glimpse into Raphael's soul. We see how,
despite the conditions that prevailed around him, he holds
converse with the eternal secrets of human development. We
sense that, in his uniqueness, Raphael does not grow out of his
surroundings, but points to a tremendous past. One does not
then need to speculate. Such a soul looks out into the world's
circumference and does not express the secrets of existence in
ideas, but forms them into a picture. By virtue of its inner
completeness such a soul is self-evidently mature in the
highest degree and truly bears special forces of humanity in
its whole disposition, — one that must have gone through epochs
that poured tremendous things into the soul, so as to reappear
in what we call the life of Raphael. How, we may ask, does this
re-emerge?

We
see the living content of Christian legends, of Christian
traditions, arise in Raphael's pictures at a time in which
Christianity had become pagan and given over to external pomp
and outer splendour. Greek paganism was represented in its gods
and venerated by the Greeks in their intoxication with beauty.
We see Raphael giving form to the figures of Christian
tradition in an age in which Greek treasures that had been
buried for centuries under rubble and debris on Roman soil were
being dug up again. We see Raphael among those excavating.
Indeed, this Rome into which Raphael was transposed makes a
remarkable impression.

What precedes this time? We see, first of all, the centuries in
which Rome emerges, built on the egoism of individuals whose
aim is to found a community in the external world based on what
the human being signifies as the citizen of a state. When Rome
had attained a certain height with the time of the Caesars, we
see it absorb the Greek element into its spiritual life. We see
Rome, though it had overwhelmed Greece politically, now
overcome by Greece spirituality. Thus, the Greek element lived
on in Rome. Greek art, to the extent it was absorbed by Rome
lives on in what is Roman. Rome becomes permeated through and
through by the Greek element.

But
why does this Greek element not remain a characteristic feature
of Italy's development over the following centuries? Why did
something altogether different in fact make its appearance?
Because, not long after this Greek element had poured itself
into the Roman world, something else came, impressing its
signature more strongly on what had developed on the soil of
Italy: Christianity, the internalizing of Christianity.
Something was now to speak to humanity, not as had the external
sensory element of Greek cities, of Greek works of art, or
Greek philosophy, but by addressing itself to the inner human
being, taking hold of this human soul in inner battles. Hence,
we see such figures arise as St. Augustine, personalities of a
quite inward disposition.

But
then, since all development runs its course cyclically, we
again see a yearning for beauty arise, after human beings had
undergone this internalizing and had lived for a long time
without the same connection to external beauty. In the
“outer” we once again see what is inward. In this
regard, it is of significance when in Assisi the inwardly
deepened life of
Francis of AssisiFrancis of Assisi
appears in the works of
Giotto,
in which Christianity is able to speak
directly to the human soul. — Even if we sense at the same time
— the expression is permissible — something awkward and
imperfect in Giotto's pictures, in bringing the inner nature of
the human being to expression. We nonetheless have a direct
line of ascent to the point where the most inward, the most
impressive and noblest becomes manifest in outer form in
Raphael and his contemporaries.

Entering in feeling into the way in which Raphael himself must have
felt, we have to say to ourselves: In looking at a picture such as the
“Madonna della Sedia,”
it strikes us, in contemplating the Madonna with the Child, along with
the Child John, that we forget the rest of the world — forget
above all that this Child held by the Madonna could be linked with
what we know as the Golgotha experience. With Raphael's picture
we forget everything that followed as the life of Christ-Jesus.
We give ourselves over entirely to the moment seen here. We
have simply a Mother and Child, of which Herman Grimm said, it
is the most exalted mystery to be met with in the outer world.
We view the moment in serenity, as though nothing could connect
onto it, either before or after. We are wholly taken up by the
relationship of the Madonna and Child, separated from
everything else. Thus, in always showing us the eternal in a
given moment, Raphael's creations appear fundamentally complete
in themselves.

What must a soul feel in creating in this manner? It cannot be
seized inwardly by the burning fervour of Savonarola that feels
the whole Christ tragedy within itself, in speaking its words
of fury, or in addressing its hearers in uplifting, pious
words. We cannot imagine that Raphael could have anything to do
with Savonarola's spiritual orientation; or that so-called
Christian fire could have held sway in Raphael. Nevertheless,
we should not think that the Christian ideas could appear to us
so vividly through Raphael — a human soul of such inwardness
and completeness — if Christian fire had been altogether
foreign to it.

One
cannot create figures in an objective and well-rounded fashion
if one is imbued with Savonarola's fire, borne along by the
whole tragic mood of Christ, feeling oneself spurred on by
this. A certain tranquillity and quite different Christian
feelings must first have arisen in the soul. Even so, what has
come to expression in Raphael's pictures could not have arisen
if the very “nerve” of Christian inwardness had not
lived in him. Is it not then reasonable to suppose: In the
painter Raphael we have a soul that must already have brought
that fire with it into physical existence that we perceive at
work in Savonarola. If we see Raphael as bringing this fire
along with him from earlier earth-lives, then we comprehend how
he could be so inwardly serene, so inwardly complete, that this
fire does not meet us as a consuming fire, destructive of
enthusiasm, but as the tranquil element of creative activity.
At his point I should like to say, one senses something in
Raphael's natural abilities by means of which, in an earlier
life, he could have spoken with the same fire as Savonarola.
And it need not astonish us if Raphael's soul were to have
re-arisen from a time in which Christianity was not yet present
in the form of art, but received that mighty impulse at its
immediate inception by which it became effective in the course
of the centuries that followed.

Perhaps it is not too audacious, in attempting to understand
Raphael, to put forward something like what has been said. For,
whoever has learned, in immersing himself again and again in
Raphael's works, to revere this individual in all its depths,
to view it in its unfathomableness, is only able by means of
such extended feelings to comprehend what speaks to us out of
the miraculous works into which Raphael poured his soul.

Raphael's mission only appears to us in the right light when we
seek, in the sense of Goethe's expression, “in a
completed life”
[“in einem abgelebten Leben”],
the Christian fire that later manifests as
serenity in Raphael. Then we come to understand why he had to
place himself into the world in such an isolated manner. And we
comprehend how the Raphael we have attempted to characterize —
having experienced something “Savonarola-like” in
an earlier life (only in an enhanced measure) — now became the
Raphael we know from Renaissance Italy.

As
already mentioned, in the time in which the Roman Empire drew
near, in the Roman period of Greece, an internalizing of the
soul had taken place. In the Renaissance, in Raphael's time, we
see the ancient Greek culture, buried under rubble,
reappearing. Rome was gradually filled with relics of Greece,
with what had once beautified the city. The Roman population
directed its attention once again to the forms the Greek spirit
had created. In this period, we also see how the spirit of
Plato, the spirit of Aristotle, the spirit of the Greek
tragedians infuses Roman life. We see the Roman world conquered
once again by Greek culture. For a spirit that had previously
given itself over to the moral-religious view of Christianity,
devoting itself in a prior life completely to such
moral-religious impressions, Greek culture may be said to have
had a renewing, fructifying effect, in appearing out of the
rubble and ruins on the Italian peninsula.

Thus, if we see the moral-religious impulse of Christianity as
integral to Raphael's innate faculties, what was not there in
his disposition appeared in the Greek artefacts then being
excavated before his eyes. The statues reappearing out of the
rubble, products of the Greek spirit, the manuscripts that were
recovered, had their effect on Raphael's soul as on no other.
What united itself in this way as a result of his inner
disposition — Christian feeling, combined with an especially
spiritual devotion to what is cosmic — all this worked together
with what was then re-emerging of the Greek spirit. These two
things united in Raphael's soul, bringing it about that in his
works we have what the time following Greece had generated —
the inwardness with which Christianity had imbued the
development of humanity — now finally brought to full
expression in a world of forms, of pictures in which the purest
Greek spirit speaks to us.

We
see the remarkable phenomenon, that through Raphael the Greek
element arises again within Christendom. In Raphael we see a
Christianity appear in an age that, all around him, presents
what is actually anti-Christian. In Raphael there lives a
Christianity that goes far beyond the narrowness of the
Christianity that had gone before, raising itself to a
far-reaching conception of the world. However, this is a
Christianity that does not merely point vaguely to infinite
realms of the spiritual, but assumes artistic form — much as
the ancient Greeks had united their idea of the gods with what
lives and weaves formlessly in the universe, pressing this into
figures that delight our senses.

In
letting one or another of Raphael's creations work on us, in
attempting to form an overall picture of his works in their
exalted, perfect forms, they appear to us as possessing a
wonderful excess of youth, for Raphael died at 37 years of age.
Not for the sake of a grey theory, nor as a
philosophical-historical “construct,” but out of
immediate feeling deriving from Raphael's works, it may be
said: The lawful continuum of mankind's spiritual life presents
itself to us most clearly with such a towering figure as
Raphael.

Imagining the progress of spiritual life as a straight line in
which cause and effect follow upon each other is truly not in
accord with the facts. There is a saying that seems obvious,
belonging to the “golden” pronouncements of
humanity, namely, that life and nature make no leaps. However,
in many respects life and nature make leaps all the time. We
see this in the development of the plant, from the green leaf
to the blossom, from the blossom to the fruit. There we see
everything develop, yet we see that leaps are inevitable.

It
is no different with the spiritual life of humanity, and this
is connected with various evolutionary secrets. One of these is
that a later epoch always has to reach back to an earlier one.
Hence, just as the masculine and the feminine have to work
together, so must the various Time Spirits work together,
mutually fertilizing each other, so that further development
can take place. Thus, the Roman period around the time of the
Caesars had to be fertilized by the Greek element, for a new
age to arise. And in the same way, the Time Spirit that then
arose had to be fertilized by the Christian impulse, in order
to make the internalizing possible that we see in St. Augustine
and others. Similarly, more recently, such an inwardly advanced
soul as Raphael had to be fertilized, made productive by the
Greek element. Doubly buried though Greek culture then was, it
yet reappeared, being doubly “extracted:” for the
eyes in that the sculptures had been covered over by the soil
of Italy; and for the souls, in the buried works of literature
that revealed the Greek spirit. The centuries of the first
Christian millennium, on the other hand, had been
extraordinarily little touched by what lived in Greek
philosophy, in Greek poetry.

Having been doubly buried, Greek culture waited, as it were, in
a “beyond” for a later point in time when it could
fertilize the human soul that had meanwhile been imbued with a
new religion. Buried, withdrawn for outer eyes and buried
likewise for souls that had no notion that it would develop
further, it actually flowed on like a river that sometimes
continues underground, out of sight, far below a mountain,
returning afterwards to the surface. This Greek culture was
buried outwardly for the senses, inwardly for the substrata of
the soul. Now it reappeared. For spiritual sight it was
excavated not only in that it was fetched from old manuscripts,
but also in that people began to experience the world in the
Greek manner once again, sensing how the spirit lives in
everything material, how everything that is material is the
revelation of the spiritual. People began to connect once more
with what Plato and Aristotle had thought.

But
Raphael was the individual on whom this could take effect most
of all, since in his whole disposition he had fully assimilated
the Christian impulses. With him this twice buried and twice
resurrected Greek culture now brought it about that he was in a
position to recreate the evolution of humanity in figures. How
marvellously was he able to accomplish this in the pictures of the
“Camera della Segnatura!”
There we see the old
spiritual contests arise again in pictures — the struggle of
those spirits that had developed in the time of internalizing,
that had not been there in the Greek period. That they could be
viewed in this way in Raphael's time — for that, the whole
period of internalizing was needed. We now see this
internalizing painted on the walls of the papal rooms.

What the Greeks had conceived and formed into figures we now
see internalized. The inner strivings and inner battles
humanity had undergone we see infused with the Greek creative
spirit, with the Greek artistic mood and sense for beauty,
conjured onto the walls of the papal palace. The Greeks poured
into their statues their conception of the way in which the
gods worked upon the world. How human beings felt in
approaching the secrets of existence presents itself to us in
the picture often referred to as the
“School of Athens.”
How the human soul had learned to view the Greek gods meets us
in the remarkable recreation of the gods of Homer in the
“Parnassus.”
These are not the gods of the
“Iliad”
and the
“Odyssey,”
but the gods as seen by a soul that had already gone through the
epoch of internalization.

On
the other wall we see the picture that must remain
unforgettable to everyone, of whatever religious confession —
as little as one can still gain an idea of it — the
“Disputa,”
(large image)
in which something most inward is
depicted. The other picture presents what is attained by means
of a certain philosophical striving, but in Greek beauty of
form. In the picture opposite, the “Disputa,” we
encounter the most profound content the human being can
experience. And the fact that we do not need to think in terms
of a narrow Christian consciousness becomes evident here in
that we find the Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva motifs expressed in a
quite different way. We have before us what the human soul can
experience inwardly of the Trinity — every soul, no matter what
confession it belongs to. This appears to us not merely
symbolically, in the symbolism of the Trinity in the upper part
of the picture. It appears to us further in each countenance of
the Church fathers and philosophers, in every motion of the
hands, in the whole distribution of the figures, in the
wonderful colour composition. It appears to us in the picture's
totality. In the beautiful forms permeated with the Greek
spirit we are presented with the human soul in its entire
inwardness. The inwardness experienced in the course of
one-and-a-half millennia arises once again, as outer revelation.
In Raphael's pictures we see Christianity, not in the form of
the paganism of the Roman popes and cardinals, but as the
ancient Greek paganism, capable of creating beautiful, splendid
figures.

Thus, Raphael stands at a turning point, at a watershed,
pointing both to an earlier age that had preceded Christianity
in the beauty of outer revelation, and to what may be seen as
inherent in the “education of the human race,” the
internalizing of the human soul. Hence, in standing in front of
these pictures of Raphael, these miraculous, unique works of
art, they appear to us as the confluence of two ages clearly
separate and distinct from each other: an age of outer
experience and one of inner experience.

Yet, at the same time, in standing before these pictures, they
open up a perspective into the future. For, with a feeling for
what has been said, who does not sense that — in spite of all
the externality that has still to evolve further in humanity's
future — this internalizing must necessarily also progress
further in the course of evolution? Indeed, the human soul will
need to find periods of ever greater inwardness in subsequent
lives.

If
we turn to literature and study, not as an art scholar or mere
reader, the works of a spirit such as Herman Grimm, who spared
no effort in portraying the workings of human phantasy, we can
understand the profound empathy with which he contemplated
Raphael's creations. It becomes comprehensible, when, at a
certain point in his work on Raphael we find words that take on
special meaning. We see how he stood before Raphael's creations
with heartfelt interest. One has to take account of what passed
through Herman Grimm's soul at a certain point in his work on
Raphael, in the first few pages where, in casting a glance at
Raphael's emergence from ancient times, he only modestly
touches on something. It is not evident, really, from where
this thought comes. — In the middle of wider historical
considerations into which Raphael is placed, a thought occurs
to Herman Grimm and is written down: “I see before me
developments of humanity, participation in which will be denied
me, but that appear to me so radiantly beautiful that, on their
account, it would be worth the trouble of beginning human life
all over again.”
[In Herman Grimm:
Das Leben Raphaels,
(The Life of Raphael), p. 4.]

This yearning of Herman Grimm for “reincarnation”
in the introduction to his Raphael book is remarkable and
profoundly indicative of a particular feeling living in a human
being who attempted to come to terms with Raphael and his
connection to other epochs. Does one not sense what can be
expressed more or less in saying: Works such as those of
Raphael are not only an end-result. They lead us to acknowledge
not only how grateful we have to be in regard to what past ages
have given us. Such works call forth feelings in us such as the
feeling of hope, since they strengthen us in our belief in the
progress of humanity. We can say to ourselves, these works
would not be as they are if humanity were not a unified being
whose nature it is to advance. Thus, certainty and hope arise
for us if we allow Raphael to work on us in the right way. And
we can then say: Through what he created artistically, Raphael
has spoken to humanity!

In
contemplating the frescoes in the
“Camera della Segnatura,”
we do of course sense the transience of the
external work. From these works, frequently painted over, we
can gain little idea of what Raphael once conjured onto the
wall. We sense that at some point in the future human beings
will no longer be able to experience the original works. But we
know, humanity will progress ever further.

Fundamentally, the works of Raphael first embarked on their
triumphal march when, with love and devotion, innumerable
engravings, photographs and reproductions of his works were made.
Their effect continues right into the reproductions. One can
understand Herman Grimm when he relates that he once hung a large
colotype
[Phototypie] of the
“Sistine Madonna”
in his room and on entering, it was always as
though he were not fully permitted to enter — as though the
room now belonged to the picture as a sanctuary of the Madonna.
Some will already have experienced how the soul actually
becomes a different being than it otherwise is in ordinary
life, when truly able to give itself over to a picture by
Raphael — even a mere reproduction. Certainly, the originals
will some day no longer exist. But, do the originals not still
exist in other realms?

Herman Grimm frankly states in his book on Homer
[See Herman Grimm:
Homers Ilias;
2nd edition, Stuttgart and Berlin 1907, p. 473.]:
We can also no longer fully enjoy the original works of Homer,
since in ordinary life, without higher spiritual forces, we are
no longer in a position to enter into all the nuances and
expressions of the Greek language in their full beauty and
power, in taking in Homer's “Iliad” and
“Odyssey”. There too we no longer have the
originals. Even so, Homer's poetic works speak to us. But, what
Raphael gave to humanity will live on as evidence of the fact
that there was once a time in the development of humanity when,
in the widest circles people were unable to immerse themselves
in thoughts and written works, since that was far from being
the norm at that time. However, in Raphael's creations the
secrets of existence spoke to the eyes of human beings. The age
of Raphael was one that read less, but that looked more.
This makes it clear that that age was differently constituted.
But what Raphael created will continue to have an effect in all
future times. Confirmation of this will be what Raphael will
continue to say to humanity. Thus, Raphael's creations will
live on in the further course of human evolution, live on
inwardly in lives that follow upon each other. In undergoing
future lives, Raphael's spirit will have ever greater things,
of an ever more inward nature, to impart to humanity.

Thus, spiritual science points to a further life in a two-fold
sense; a living-on of a kind described in lectures that have
been given and that will be spoken of further, becoming our
guide in going through earthly existence in ever new epochs. It
can be said to be entirely true, what Herman Grimm states in
words summarizing what resulted for him from his overall study
of Raphael: Even if Raphael's works will eventually have faded
or been destroyed, Raphael will still live on. For, with him
something has been implanted in the spirit of humanity that
will forever germinate and bear fruit.

Every human soul sufficiently able to deepen itself in Raphael
will come to feel this. Only in entering into a sense with
which Herman Grimm was imbued — heightening and deepening this
by means of spiritual science — do we come to understand
Raphael fully. We indicated recently how close he stood, in
contemplating Raphael ever and again, to spiritual science. —
We can understand our relation to Raphael and such thoughts as
have been ventured today can grow in us, if we conclude by
summarizing what has been said in words of Herman Grimm:

Human beings will always want to know about Raphael; about the
beautiful young painter who surpassed all others; who was fated
to die early. Whose death all Rome mourned. When the works of
Raphael are finally lost, his name will remain engraved in
human memory.
[From Herman Grimm:
Das Leben Raphaels, p. 1.]

Thus, did Herman Grimm express himself in beginning his
discourse on Raphael. We understand these words; and we
understand him again in concluding, at the end of his work on
Raphael:

All
the world will want to know about the life-work of such a human
being, for Raphael has become one of the pillars upon which the
higher culture of the human spirit is founded. We would fain
draw nearer to him, since we have need of him for our well-being.
[Ibid., p. 334.]